Tardiness and Recognition (Wk 3)

If a student is consistently late to your class, how would you handle the situation? 

Tardiness can be a difficult issue to handle especially in a first period class. It would be simple and fair to mark every student that is late as tardy and have them face the consequences that they school has laid out.  But the situation is not that simple. For instance in my class there is a student that is often late because her mother goes out for the night with her boyfriend and is late coming back in the morning. This student is left to care for a younger sibling until mom gets back home. I don't feel comfortable penalizing the student for her mother's irresponsible behavior and I don't always mark her late. This is a very rare case during which I would make sure that clear communication between the student and it clarifies any issues about tardiness.

My 2nd period class had a large number of students that were regularly tardy. I reminded them that when the bell rang at the start of the period they needed to be sitting at their desk and if they were not they would be marked tardy. The problem continued, and was not fully corrected until I started locking the classroom door and sending students away to get a tardy pass if they did not follow the rule that I had given them. The following day everyone was on time!  I've learned that setting clear rules and consequences and carrying out those consequences changes student behavior and yields quick results.  

How do you give your students recognition?  Do you think a student can have too much recognition?

Students are recognized in a variety of ways and degrees. On a daily basis they are verbally praised for completing assignments on time and with excellence. I walk around the classroom and glance at their work. I say anything from, "great job," "that's very colorful," "Good job going beyond the expectations," to desperately finding something to praise a student about and saying, "good job highlighting" or "your notebook looks very neatly organized, good job" I do not think that there can every be too much praise. Students need feedback and positive feedback fuels them to keep moving forward. I think that feeling appreciated and recognized is very important and I try to do it regularly. Another way that students are recognized is by having their work displayed in the classroom. Work that meets the expectations and is done with care is displayed throughout the classroom. And the kids really do notice if their work is up on the wall.

Our school is broken up into Houses- a system of organizing students into groups so that they share the same pool of teachers who meet monthly to discuss student progress and grades. At the end of each semester they recognize a student in each of the teachers classes that is "most improved", and "excellent". They also throw a gathering and invite all the students from the House that earn a 2.0 GPA or above. Students that earn a 3.0 GPA can eat for free as an additional reward. I would love to get hired at a school that is arranged into Houses because it is a great system of tracking students and taking action if they are performing poorly in multiple classes.